Monday, January 30, 2012

I was sitting on the bus after school minding my own business when this girl comes up and asks me why my hair is red. (For those of you that don't know my hair is red) this is how the conversation went:

"Why is your hair red?" Girl.
"Because I dyed it." Me.
"Are you sure? Or did god make it red that way? Or did your mom make it red for 'god'?" Girl

I can understand that she's young so I don't hold it against her in the slightest. After all how could she know I don't believe in a single god? She couldn't.

The real trouble came when a seventh grade girl got on the bus. (There were only three people on the bus aside from me.) She started questioning me about everything under the sun, even figured out that I'm a lesbian pretty quickly. Still not quite sure how that happened, but she was cool with it so it didn't matter. What she wasn't cool with was that I'm planning to go to Germany next year as an exchange student. Conversation went something like this:

"What are you gonna do when they rape you?" Her.
"They aren't going to. This is one of the safest programs, it's been around for years and all the host families go through background checks and interviews and things." Me.
She didn't like that answer as her voice grew louder, and harsher. "Yes they will. They're going to put you in a whore house." Her.

That totally threw me off, but I didn't show it. She continued on and on for about six city blocks, until she went on to say this, and I QUOTE:

"Why would you want to go to Germany they're a bunch of Hitlers?"

To that I could only stare at her appalled that she would say that. If she knew ANYTHING about German history, or history of WWII then she would know that only a small portion of Germany actually agreed with Hitler, the rest opposed him.

What really pissed me off though was that I'm mostly German, my family is German, most of my friends are German, and the German people are amazing people. I love Germans, the culture, and the language. That someone is so ignorant to the world around them DISGUSTS me to no end.

So I simply stared at her for a long few moments before saying, "I'm German. So is my family. Most of my friends live in Germany." The look on her face was priceless. Not because she was sorry, not because she felt bad for saying what she had, but because I was the one who heard it.

She has grown up thinking it's okay to generalize, a very large, group of people like that. She had no problem when I was a lesbian, which is a great thing trust me. No, her problem was when I was German. Because Apparently the fact that I'm German makes me Hitler. She insulted me more deeply than I've ever been insulted before in my life. She cut me so deeply that I will never be able to look her in the eye ever again.

My generation needs to learn that this is not okay. This is not acceptable behavior for ANYONE. Generalizing is bad, terrible. And insulting a group of people you know little about, is even worse. I'm so deeply horrified that she said that. At the time I wanted to stuff her in a box and lock it away deep down where no one would ever hear her speak again, that's how embarrassed I was.

You can say, 'oh it's just that she's young' or 'she just hadn't learned about that yet.' But when you really think about it on a grander scale, she DOES know that it's not okay to generalize people. She DOES know, that that is a blanket statement and is incredibly hurtful to those it effects. She does know that it was wrong, and I saw it written all over her face.

Please, please, please, teach your children, your friends, you cousins, siblings, family, EVERYONE, that generalizing is NOT okay and that we need to STAND UP and teach our children what is right and what is wrong.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

So I read this really interesting article today about what drives your character in a story, like their deep down thoughts, regrets, fears and morals. I write out a character outline for each of my characters before or as I'm writing and I include a few things like fears, basic personality, family all that kind of stuff but I realize after reading this article that I never really delve that deeply into what drives them and the like.

It mentions that you should find your characters primary overarching goal, along with their basic goals, this is part I'm usually very null on until the story reveals it to me. Otherwise I just draw up a blank.

The next big thing is covers is fatal flaws, those things that if your antagonist figured out could do serious damage to your character with. Their little insecurities and stuff they try to hide. It's interesting that they cover this because as with their goal I wait for my characters to reveal it to me and they usually don't, or if they do it's very vague.

When it talks about strengths and how the author of the article believes that the best villains have admirable qualities, but have simply fallen prey to their own flaws and wants, was an interesting view on things. I've never thought about it in that way, I just tended to think about the fact they something happened to make them this way and I'll have to wait until they figure out what it is before I get to know.

I tend to let my characters tell me their story as I write, finding that you can learn all sorts of interesting things from them.

The section on fears was so far the most interesting to one to me. The author make a reference to Snow White and how the queen being told that she was no longer the most beautiful could have been due to aging. So she has Snow White killed, kind of, to regain her status as the most beautiful. The author then goes on to think through what Snow White might do when she no longer is the most beautiful, and falls to aging.

Everyone has secrets and finding out how your characters affect them has always been interesting to me. One of my characters in a story I'm working on right now is stuck in inner turmoil of having left her home as it was being cut down. She feels guilty for leaving but knows she would have been killed if she had stayed. She's too scared to tell anyone fro fear of what they will think of her so she keeps it a secret what was going on. By doing this she just puts herself through more conflict.

This article was incredibly interesting to me, and I believe it will help me quite a bit in my writing.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

I discovered Jonny James after he followed me on Twitter, yes I am an active user of Twitter. (https://twitter.com/#!/AndreasSnow)
I then proceded to stalk his facebook band page and well I really like his music and felt the absolute need to SHARE.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

It's been a while since I've posted. My life has become algebra 2 homework, chemistry homework, and four episode marathons of Sanctuary a Syfy show I've recently become hooked on. So in other words I've been either doing homework, or spending a few hours relaxing for once.